It felt good being finally outside again, even if the morning sun had me squinting uncomfortably. With the only sources of light in the dungeon being the glowing moss and a couple of torches, the difference was, well, night and day.

I looked back to the rest of the party, checking to see how everyone fared. Shiro and Sarah sat hunched next to the porter, poring over the loot, trying to sort it into piles by value and usefulness. Leon was standing nearby, free to enjoy his pipe, and would occasionally peer over Sarah’s shoulder, giving them a pointer or two.

I hadn’t programmed emotions into the wights, on account of the extra complexity requiring a bigger soul and by extension a greater mana upkeep cost, but somehow the baggage wight still managed to look somewhat… relieved, now that his comrades who’d been patiently waiting outside were here to share his burden.

I would need to give that one a closer inspection; it wouldn’t do for a wight to accidentally develop sentience.

A piercing caw broke me from my reverie, followed by the flutter of wings, as a large, ambiguous-looking bird of prey landed before me, a wooden tube held tightly in its claws.

I had felt the undead bird approaching as soon as we left the dungeon, and I wasted no time bending down to retrieve its message — I had left quite a few of these birds in the hands of people I trusted or thought might need to contact me, and this bird was one of the fresher ones.

Gently removing the tube from its claws, I uncapped the container which bore the seal of the Duchy of Canneria (or, more accurately, the Domain of Canneria), revealing a short rolled-up letter from the man I chose as its governor.

Lord Crane,

We have received disturbing news from the west that may be of interest to you.

The Archmage Ludis has declared a personal war on your Lordship, and will be mobilizing shortly. We believe he has also gained the support of the Priesthood of Yain, which may turn this war into a full-blown crusade.

Should you wish, I will send regular updates based on what our agents uncover.

Yours sincerely,

Kirin-of-Iron

Despite this body not truly having the capacity for pain, I couldn’t help but feel something akin to a migraine blooming. Couldn’t they leave me in peace for a single month, I wondered?

Sighing, I retrieved a piece of parchment from the luggage, quickly scrawled an affirmative reply, and entrusted it to the undead raptor. I then signaled to my companions to prepare themselves to leave and willed the wights to load up the carriage.

Canneria, as a whole, was a no-name country at the edge of the world, of little political import and influence. The siege had been doomed to fail from the start, despite my magic not being suited for warfare — even the shoddiest of Archmagi could have done the same, and one specializing in something more combat-oriented could have just blasted them to smithereens in one exchange.

But now I’d be up against one of my peers, and one who’d been an Archmage for centuries — one I’d looked up to, once, when I was a young apprentice at the Academy dreaming of mastering Force.

It was time to finally get serious.

The news had spread wide by the time I got to Ravenrock, and I realized the necromantic bird had been looking for me for longer than I’d thought — with the dungeon being as suffused with magic as it was, even with our direct link, tracking me was all but impossible. Judging by the news, it would have been sent not long after we entered the Steelsilk grotto.

I cursed at the wasted time. If only, if only, if only…

“Hey, relax, Boss, it’s going to be all right,” Sarah said soothingly, as we made our way up to the tower’s observatory. “You already beat one army, what’s another one gonna do?”

“It’s very much not the same,” I said, my voice clipped. “Even if they turned out to be more competent than expected, they were still a small-time army equipped to defeat a small-time duke and his troops. They were never going to defeat an Archmage, even with the element of surprise.”

“So, what’s the plan?” Shiro asked.

“I don’t know,” I answered, and it pained me to say it. “We’ll see after we get eyes on their troops.”

At least for this, I had an answer.

I cleared away the array of mirrors and lenses that occupied most of the space in my observatory, pushing away the pedestal that sat in the middle with an effort of will. The pair of Heroes looked around quizzically, unfamiliar with the kind of magics that were worked into the room.

With the room clear, I signaled to the two onlookers to take a few steps back, so that they were next to the wall, and then I crouched to a squat, placing a hand on the silver engravings that ran through the floor.

Willing Fate mana into the runes, I watched as they began glowing brightly as the spell frame they described powered itself on.

The inner workings of these engravings were foreign to me, as much as I would have loved to take credit — but I had nowhere near the proficiency required to create such a thing. I had paid a handsome sum to a Fate Adept specializing in permanent spells to create this working, enough gold to make even me wince, but it was worth every copper.

While the engravings slowly powered on, I touched on some of my outgoing threads of Soul magic — I had hundreds active, enough that identifying each one was a headache, but in this case, it was easy: I merely had to search for the ones that went up.

At my query, a score of rudimentary souls lit up in my mind, and I separated them from the rest of the undead I commanded. I chose one of the threads at random, plucking it from the bunch and attaching it to the Fate construct below me.

The effect was instantaneous. Where before had been a wooden floor carved with flowing silver indentations, now laid a clear image of green meadows dotted with herds of animals every here and there.

“Fuck, that’s cool,” I heard Shiro exclaim from behind me.

“This is just an image, right?” Sarah asked warily. “I’m not going to fall if I take a step forward, right?”

I turned around just in time to see Shiro smirk maliciously, before moving a hand behind Sarah and giving her a strong shove.

She shrieked, placing a foot forward on top of the image to regain her balance, then calmed down when she realized that the ground was, in fact, solid.

She shot Shiro a wicked look that spoke of debts unpaid, and he just shrugged. “Turnabout is fair play.”

She returned to the wall, finding a new place further away from the other Hero. I helplessly shook my head; kids…

Returning my attention to the view below me, I instructed the dead bird to turn around a few times, giving me a good look of the surrounding areas, but nothing stood out, which was to be expected. Sending the bird to scout its next assigned location, I focused inward again, releasing the connection and picking another bird from the pile of threads.

The scene changed, but not by much. It was the same rural view, although from this one I could see a village in the distance, as well as some farmlands — nothing to indicate the passage of an incoming army.

I spent the next twelve hours repeating the same movements to little success. I had already mapped out the entirety of Canneria and my undead fliers were headed west — I did not expect the army, if there was any, to already make it so far east, but it was best to be thorough.

My heroic minions had left long ago with instructions to forget about saving their stats and instead just distribute everything they had — going all out against Ludis was necessary, and even so, I was worried it would not be enough.

A stray thought came to me, and I wondered if Jenna had gotten my letter yet; she should have, given the messenger bird’s position, but I had no way to check that the bird hadn’t lost it.

I released a shallow laugh — here I was, trying to prepare for the hardest battle in my life, and getting distracted by a plagiarism lawsuit. The distraction almost made me miss the telltale signs of an army passing right near the edge of the room.

Instantly zeroing in on the irregularity, I directed the bird to fly high in its direction. I was afraid it would be identified and shot down should it come too close — the glow of magic would have been obvious to anyone who knew how to look.

I took note of the location (somewhere about two weeks away from my tower, by horse), calling for more birds to converge nearby in case my first scout was shot down.

They had set camp for the night, with the last rays of the sun barely visible above the hills. The cover of night should hopefully mask the presence of the birds.

As the raptor approached the encampment, I was able to discern some rough numbers, but from the looks of it, there was both good and bad news.

The good news was that the army was barely an army by numbers. From my bird's-eye view, I estimated roughly 3000 strong in all. They hadn’t recruited people for this campaign.

The bad news was that those numbers were irrelevant, as every single one of them was either a priest or paladin of Yain, with paladins outnumbering the priests 2 to 1.

Of all the gods, Yain was the one I liked the least. He was one of the last gods to ascend, back in the Ancient Times, and when he was still mortal he had been renowned as a prolific mage-killer.

It was perfectly natural, then, that his followers followed right in his footsteps. Clearly, fate had decided that I’d had it too easy up until now.

I identified some tents as belonging to the more important people in this expedition, including one that glowed so brightly of magic that it could not have been anyone else’s but Ludis’s. Using Soul Sight through the image did not work very well, though I did pick up a certain… taste, that hinted at Dimension magic being used. Likely a tent that was much bigger on the inside.

I surveyed the camp as best as I could, but from the bird’s height, picking up any kind of detail was an exercise in futility. Aside from the shiny armor and flowing white robes, there was little I could tell about the crusaders.

For an instant, I thought I could see a short silhouette, light and oddly familiar, wearing dark leathers that stood out among the sea of white. I directed the bird to fly a little bit closer, trying to catch a glimpse of the stranger.

The dead raptor flew precipitously low under the cover of darkness, almost reaching the top of the taller tents, but the stranger must have disappeared inside one of the tents.

Partially giving up on the hunt, I had the bird perch on top of a tent, making it spin around every so often, trying to spot the dark silhouette.

I saw a shuffle of tarp coming from Ludis’s tent and my bird focused its sight in the tent’s direction. Too late, I ordered the bird to fly away, but the Archmage had spotted it and identified it for the necromantic construct that it was.

Before being blasted into nothingness by a spear of hot plasma, however, the bird had finally caught a glimpse of the mysterious stranger, exiting the tent right on Ludis’s heels.

It was Vinara. The woman whose mind I’d played with and who had tried to kill me as revenge for her liege. She’d failed then, but now, it seemed she’d brought backup.